![]() (a project from my biopsych class - and a look inside my fascination with psychology) What makes you happy? Chocolate? A Netflix binge of The Office? What about the sight of lots of those hearts that appear underneath your own social media posts? If that last question makes you smile, settle in! This relationship between brain activity (and therefore, emotion) and social media was in fact investigated in a recent study done by Lauren E. Sherman and colleagues at University of California, Los Angeles. Specifically, the researchers tested how adolescents perceive “likes” on one of the most popular social media sites today: Instagram. The study presented 32 adolescents, aged between 13 and 18, with something they are very familiar with: a scroll through an Instagram feed. Except for the fact that the participant was viewing them from inside a brain scanner and was looking at images that had actually been selected by psychologists. Each participant was shown 148 unique photos on Instagram. 40 of these pictures were the participant’s own pictures, but the rest were selected by the researchers (although the participant thought all the images were submitted by other participants). These included “risky” images of alcohol or smoking and “neutral” images of friends or food. Participants assumed all of the likes associated with each picture were from the participants who had gone before them (their peers). In reality, the researchers had assigned the number of likes to each photo. Half of the photos had between 0-22 likes, and the other half had between 23-45 likes, split evenly between the different types of images (Sherman et. al). While the participants scrolled, brain activity was measured through an fMRI scanner, which detects blood flow in the most active regions of the brain. The researchers found that there was greater brain activity when the participant viewed a photo with more likes. Specific regions activated included the medial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, which are involved in processing social cognition and social memories. The nucleus accumbens was also activated, a part of the brain that is active when we experience reward (Sherman et. al). Surveys have shown that people fear social threats more than physical threats. The lack of “likes” on an Instagram post may be examples of social threats, especially according to this research about adolescents. But don’t take my word for it, there are other articles that have written about this study and have more to say about the takeaways from this research. In particular, consider looking at the article from UCLA Newsroom that discusses this study further. The article is titled “The teenage brain on social media” and has some good additional information. To start, the article describes that the same area of the brain activated when we eat chocolate or win money is also activated when teens see a lot of likes on Instagram (UCLA Newsroom). This makes the research findings more generalizable, allowing readers to better understand and relate to what phenomena was being studied. The article does a good job overall of describing the study in a concise and efficient way. It references the study’s main takeaways, such as the arrangement and types of photos used, the activation of nucleus accumbens (reward center), and some of the implications of these activated brain areas. One unique thing about this popular news source is that it also interviewed a few of the authors from this study. This gives the topic a new level of meaning and implication. For example, Laura Sherman, the lead author, reiterated the main focus of the study by saying that “teens react differently to information when they believe it has been endorsed by many or few of their peers” (UCLA Newsroom). Another author, Mirella Dapretto, discusses an important takeaway that the study does not necessarily highlight, which is the question of whether or not adults should be worried about their children using social media. Dapretto claimed that even though these “virtual peers” are complete strangers, the teens are still valuing their opinion and wanting to conform with them, regardless of the content portrayed on the social media posts. It is also important to realize that there is a lot that is lost without face to face communication. This includes things such as reading facial expressions, gait patterns, and in this context, even tone of voice. Relationships with these “virtual peers” are created in a very different way. An important takeaway from the study is that the reward center in the brain had more activation when the participant viewed an image of their own, which speaks to how much adolescents value and feel rewarded due to their own self-presentation. In addition, an increase in Instagram likes can feed into that rewarding feeling (Sherman et. al). This implies that teens care deeply about how they are presented to their peers, which provides insight into why teens will do whatever it takes to be accepted - even if that means engaging in risky behavior. The UCLA article did not discuss this particular part about the reward center. I think the article would greatly benefit from discussing this result, especially if the authors are trying to address why parents should or should not be concerned about their children using social media. I hope you can see that this study conducted on adolescents is very applicable in a society that is constantly being shaped by social media. The article from UCLA Newsroom is an example of a good popular media source for this study. The only thing the UCLA article could benefit from is being a bit more detail in portraying the specific results of the study. This can provide even more important and relevant information to the general public about how social media can affect the developing brain. Let this blog post be an example of this phenomena - make sure your brain does not always believe every “popular” news story it reads until it has all of the facts!
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